LEADERSHIP: WILL FATE TAKE A BITE OUT OF APPLE’S EQUITY?
cult or culture?
The WSJ wrote that Ford, Disney, Wal-mart, Sony, and Honda, experienced serious difficulty after their charismatic CEOs stepped down. Steve Job’s exit, may cause a similar transfer malaise at Apple. Fortune list companies get lots of attention when a head honcho exits, but loss of financial value can be much greater when small to midsize businesses change hands.
Most SMS businesses are run by; founders, next generation family members, or external buyers. Typically, these owners rely on personal-authority to manage (either motivational or tyrannical). When personality driven SMS businesses are sold, people are left in the lurch. Compare personality-driven SMS businesses to a jazz band. When the leader leaves, even the most successful bands will usually dissolve because members “play by ear”and are conditioned to follow the leader. There’s no written music, everything is in the owner’s head. Wealth and wisdom fades when personal-authority oriented leaders leave. The organization will have little to no future value, so nobody will be interested in buying. Buyers pay top dollar for self sustaining cultures not for personality driven cults
Pertinent facts for SMS business owners:
- Over 70 % of SMS business owners are “baby boomers” who will either sell or transfer their business during the next decade.
- Most “next generation” family members have no interest in taking over.
- A glut of SMS businesses will hit the selling block at the same time.
- My experience coaching The CEOs of SMS businesses is that over 75 % of boomer owners have not given their end game a second thought.
The solution: Secure corporate viability by creating *transferable wealth and wisdom. (*A company not dependent on the CEO or any individual)
- Implement an inspirational-leadership process (using clarified cultural-values and an ethics platform)
o Make leadership everybody’s business
o Conduct “rite of passage” values clarification sessions—get employees to paint themselves into a picture H of the organization’s preferred future.
o Teach people how to inspire others by recognizing cultural-values contributions
2. Introduce (company-wide and top to bottom) supervisory protocols
o Teach supervisors to conduct effective performance correction sessions
o Subordinate personal-authority to process-discipline
3. Move towards managing by “shift-age” compliant strategic processes rather than an industrial-age departmental focus